


Hypervigilance

by Starofwinter



Series: Adjacent Verse [16]
Category: Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 18:04:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11583375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starofwinter/pseuds/Starofwinter
Summary: Rex can't shake the feeling that something is waiting for them in the shadows.





	Hypervigilance

Rex can’t sleep.  He never can, not till the early hours of the morning, when he’s simply too exhausted to keep his eyes open.  He’s aware of every little sound - and with the wind and the natural surroundings of the farm, there are a lot - and every shifting shadow on the wall.  He knows there’s nothing there, but it  _ feels _ like there’s something just out of his line of sight, just out of his range of hearing.  So he stays perfectly still, hoping he’ll catch a glimpse, or not.  Finally, it feels like his nerves are going to snap, so he picks himself up and goes out to sit on the porch, a small lamp burning bright at his side, and watches over the fields.  

Every sound is amplified, every creak of metal on the tank, every brush of animal through the grass, it sounds like something just waiting for Rex to turn his back, and it pushes him even closer to the edge of losing his shit completely.  He feels defective, sometimes, even though Ahsoka and Wolffe reassure him time and again that he  _ isn’t.   _ He tries not to break, no matter how much he wants to.  No one was meant to take this and live, were they?  How is he supposed to do this?  He feels  _ fragile _ , like too much shrapnel is buried under his skin, just waiting for the chance to slice him open from the inside out.  He has to fight the urge to  _ scream _ sometimes, because that’s the only thing he  _ hasn’t _ tried, yet.  The ghosts don’t go away, they just wait for the nighttime, when everything is quiet and there’s nothing to keep his mind occupied.  Fuck, he hates it.

Rex almost jumps out of his skin when Ahsoka steps out next to him, and he cranes his neck up so he can see her.  He tries to smile, but he’s just too damned tired, and he sits back, his eyes searching the darkness.  

“Can’t sleep?” Ahsoka asks as she steps outside, Wolffe’s coat - well,  _ Rex’s _ coat, but Wolffe steals it for his own more often than not - wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the damp chill of the night.

Rex shakes his head.  He doesn’t know how to explain it to her, being on alert all the time, constantly watching for danger that he doesn’t think is coming, but can’t stop looking for either.   “Nah,” he says instead, “You don’t need to stay awake with me though.”  Ahsoka’s threatened to before when he’s done this; he wonders for a second if she knows  _ every _ time he slips out of bed to keep watch.  She probably does, she’s a Jedi, after all.  “Go on back to bed, cyar’ika.” 

“We’re worried about you,” Ahsoka argues, but there’s no heat in her words.  He knows they are, but what can he say?  He knows the inside of his head is a kriffing mess, and he doesn’t want her to see just how fucked up it is.  Not because he thinks Ahsoka will  _ leave _ , he knows her better than that, but hells, she carries so damned much on her shoulders already, he doesn’t want to add more weight to that.

Rex just sighs and closes his eyes, tilting his head into her cool hand as she runs fingers through his hair.  “I’ll be alright.”  He wants to be, but he knows this wasn’t the kind of thing anyone came back from in one piece.  There’s words for the kind of shit he brought home from the war, but clones never needed them.  There were ways to deal with this during the war, but this isn’t the war anymore.  He snorts a little at the idea.  Clearly his brain hasn’t caught up with that.  He scrubs a hand over his face before leaning against Ahsoka’s side.  “I’m always alright, yeah?”  Gods, but he isn’t, and he isn’t sure he ever will be, but maybe if he can convince her, he can convince himself.  The smile he gives her doesn’t reach his eyes, but she doesn’t say a word, just sits down and wraps an arm around him to wait for sunrise.


End file.
